The Lion's Game

CHAPTER 12

We all walked out of the Conquistador Club into the sunlight and saw more vehicles pulling up. Our team leader, Mr. George Foster, said to us, "I'll call headquarters and have all our stakeouts alerted and increased."

The ATTF, by the way, stakes out houses of known and suspected terrorists, bomb chuckers, their friends, families, and sympathizers. The NYPD guys who work for the ATTF supply the shoe leather for this. The Feds give the city of New York more money than the job is worth, and everyone is happy.

Foster went on, "We'll increase phone taps, pull in some informants, and put Khalil's photo out to every law enforcement agency in the country."

George Foster went on a bit, making sure we knew he was on top of things, and building up everyone's confidence and morale, not to mention creating some credibility for himself for the moment when he had to kiss major ass.

And speaking of that, eventually someone who we couldn't totally bullshit was going to show up here, so I suggested, "Maybe we should go back to Federal Plaza and on our way there get our facts straight."

Everyone thought that was a fine idea. Troubled minds think alike.

We needed a scapegoat to stay behind, however, and Foster knew that he was it. He said, "You three go ahead. I have to stay here and… brief whoever shows up. Also, I have to put out the alert, and get the crime lab here." He added, to convince himself, I think, "I can't leave. This is a secure FBI facility, and…"

I added helpfully, "And there's no one left to secure it."

He looked annoyed for the first time since I'd met him. He said to me, "It's a restricted area with classified data and…" He wiped some sweat off his lip and looked at the ground.

George Foster was realizing, of course, that Mr. Asad Khalil had known about this sanctum sanctorum, had penetrated into the heart of it, and taken a crap on the floor. Foster also knew how this had happened vis-à-vis February's bogus defector. There were six tons of shit about to fall on George Foster, and he knew it. To his credit, he said, "This is my responsibility and my… my…" He turned and walked away.

Mr. Ted Nash, of course, belonged to an organization that specialized in sidestepping tons of falling shit, and I knew that nothing was going to splatter his bespoken suit. He turned and walked toward Simpson's patrol car.

As for me, having been recently assigned to this sterling team, I was pretty clean and would probably stay that way, unless Nash figured out a way to push me under the shit storm. Maybe that's why he wanted me around. Kate Mayfield, like George Foster, had no umbrella, but she'd covered herself a little by joining me in my ride to the aircraft. I said to her, "I've got nothing to lose here, and I will try to cover for you."

She forced a smile and replied, "Thanks, but we'll just tell it like it happened and let Washington decide if any of us is at fault."

I rolled my eyes, but she pretended not to notice. She added, "I intend to stay on this case."

"You'll be lucky if they don't put you back into Accounting."

She informed me coolly, "We don't operate like that. It is policy to keep an agent on a case that he or she has bungled, as long as you're straight with them and don't lie to them."

"Really? I think the Boy Scouts have a similar policy."

She didn't reply.

A horn was honking, and it was Ted Nash waiting impatiently in the passenger seat of Officer Simpson's car. We walked over to the car and got in the back where the two attaché cases sat. Nash said to us, "Officer Simpson has gotten permission to take us to lower Manhattan."

Simpson informed us, "I'm so deep in shit because of you guys, it doesn't matter what I do anymore."

Kate said, "I'll take care of it. You did a fine job."

"Whoopie," said Officer Simpson.

We rode in silence a few minutes, out toward one of the exits near the warehouses.

Finally, Nash said to me, "You did a good job, Detective."

This sort of caught me by surprise, including the use of my former exalted title. I was speechless, and I began thinking that maybe I'd gotten old Ted all wrong. Maybe we could bond, maybe I should reach out and tousle his hair and say, "You big galoot-I love you!"

Anyway, we got to an exit gate, and a Port Authority cop waved us on with barely a look. Obviously, the word hadn't gotten out to everyone. I told Simpson to stop.

I got out of the car and flashed my Fed creds and said to the guy, "Officer, have you gotten the word to stop and search all vehicles?"

"Yeah… but not police cars."

This was frustrating, and it pissed me off. I reached into the car and retrieved a dossier. I took out the photo and showed it to him. "Have you seen this guy?"

"No… I think I'd remember that face."

"How many vehicles have come through here since you got the alert?"

"Not many. It's Saturday. Maybe a dozen."

"Did you stop and search them?"

"Yeah… but they were all big trucks filled with crates and boxes. I can't open every box, unless it looks like the Customs seal has been tampered with. All the drivers had their Customs stuff in order."

"So you didn't open any crates?"

The guy was getting a little pissed at me and said, "I need some backup for that. That could take all day."

"How many vehicles passed through here right before you got the alert?"

"Maybe… two or three."

"What kind of vehicles?"

"Couple of trucks. A taxi."

"Passenger in the taxi?"

"I didn't notice." He added, "It was before the alert."

"Okay…" I gave him the photo and said, "This guy is armed and dangerous, and he's already killed too many cops today."

"Jesus."

I got back in the car and we proceeded. I noted that the PA cop didn't start with us and make us open the trunk, which is what I would have done if some wise-ass just busted my balls. But America wasn't ready for any of this. Not at all ready.

We got on the parkway and headed back toward Manhattan.

We drove in silence awhile. The Belt Parkway traffic was what the helicopter traffic idiot would call moderate to heavy. Actually, it was heavy to horrible, but I didn't care. I watched Brooklyn pass by out the right window, and I said to my Federal friends, "There are sixteen million people in the metropolitan area, eight million in New York City. Among them are about two hundred thousand newly arrived immigrants from Islamic countries, about half of them here in Brooklyn."

Neither Kate nor Nash commented.

Regarding Khalil, if he had indeed disappeared into these teeming millions, could the ATTF root him out? Maybe. The Mideastern community was pretty closed, but there were informants, not to mention loyal Americans amongst them. The underground terrorist network was badly compromised, and to give the Feds credit, they had a good handle on who was who.

So, for that reason, Asad Khalil was not going to make contact with the usual suspects. No one who was bright enough to pull off what he'd just pulled off was going to be stupid enough to join up with anyone less intelligent than he was.

I considered Mr. Khalil's audacity, which his sympathizers would call bravery. This man was going to be a challenge, to say the least.

Finally, Nash said to no one in particular, "About a million people slip into this country illegally every year. It's not that difficult. So, what I think is that our guy's mission was not to get into the country to commit an act of terrorism. His mission was to do what he did on the aircraft and at the Conquistador Club, then get out. He never left the airport and unless the Port Authority police have caught him, he's on an outbound plane right now. Mission accomplished."

I said to Ted Nash, "I've already discarded that theory. Catch up."

He replied tersely, "I've discarded the other possibilities. I say he's airborne."

I recalled the Plum Island case, and Mr. Nash's illogical reasoning and far-out conspiracy theories. Obviously the man had been trained beyond his intelligence and had forgotten how to even spell common sense. I said to him, "Ten bucks says we hear from our boy very soon and very close by."

Nash replied, "You're on." He turned in his seat and said to me, "You have no experience in these things, Corey. A trained terrorist is not like a stupid criminal. They hit and run, then hit and run again, sometimes years later. They don't revisit the scene of their crimes, and they don't go hide out at their girlfriend's house with a hot gun and a bag of loot, and they don't go to a bar and brag about their crimes. He's airborne."

"Thank you, Mr. Nash." I wondered if I should strangle him or smash his skull in with my gun butt.

Kate said, "That's an interesting theory, Ted. But until we know for sure, we're alerting the entire ATTF Mideast section to stake out all houses of known terrorist sympathizers and suspects."

Nash replied, "I have no problem with standard operating procedure. But I'll tell you this-if this guy is still in the country, the last place you're going to find him is where you think he'll show up. The February guy never showed up after he bolted, and he never will. If these two guys are connected, they represent something new and unknown. Some group we know nothing about."

I'd already figured that out. Also, on one level, I hoped he was right about Khalil being airborne. I wouldn't mind losing the ten bucks, even to this schmuck, and much as I'd like to get my hands on Asad Khalil and lump him up until his mother couldn't recognize him, I really wanted him someplace else, where he couldn't do any further damage to the good old US of A. I mean, a guy who would kill a planeload of innocent people undoubtedly had an atomic bomb up his sleeve, or anthrax in his hat, or poison gas up his ass.

Simpson asked, "Are we talking, like, Arab terrorist?"

I replied bluntly, "We're talking the mother of all terrorists."

Nash said to Simpson, "Forget everything you heard."

"I heard nothing," replied Simpson.

As we approached the Brooklyn Bridge, Kate said to me, "I think you may be late for your date on Long Island."

"How late?"

"About a month."

I didn't reply.

She added, "We'll probably fly to Washington first thing tomorrow."

This was the Fed equivalent, I guess, of going to One Police Plaza to face the music and dance. I wondered if there was an escape clause in my hiring contract. I had it in my desk at Federal Plaza. I'd have to give it a quick read.

We went over the bridge and exited into the canyons of lower Manhattan. No one said much, but you could smell the brain cells burning.

Police cars don't have regular AM/FM radios, but Officer Simpson had a portable radio, and he tuned to 1010 WINS News. A reporter was saying, "The aircraft is still in the fenced-off security area out by one of the runways, and we can't see what's going on, though we've seen vehicles arriving and leaving the area. What appeared to be a large refrigerated truck left the area a few minutes ago, and there is speculation that this truck was transporting bodies."

The reporter paused for effect, then continued, "Authorities haven't released an official statement, but a spokesperson from the National Transportation Safety Board told reporters that toxic fumes had overcome the passengers and crew, and there are some fatalities. The aircraft, though, has landed safely, and all we can do is hope and pray that there are few fatalities."

The anchorwoman asked, "Larry, we're hearing rumors that the aircraft was out of radio contact for several hours before it landed. Have you heard anything about that?"

Larry, the on-the-scene guy, said, "The FAA has not confirmed that, but an FAA spokesperson did say that the pilot radioed in that he was experiencing some fumes and smoke on board, and he thought it was something chemical, or maybe an electrical fire."

This was news to me, but not to Ted Nash, who commented cryptically, "I'm glad they're getting their facts straight."

Facts? It seemed to me that lacking any smoke in the aircraft, someone was manufacturing it and blowing it up everyone's ass.

The radio reporter and the anchorlady were going on about the Swissair tragedy, and someone recalled the Saudi air tragedy. Nash turned off the radio.

I realized Kate was looking at me. She said softly, "We don't know what happened, John, so we won't speculate. We'll avoid talking to the news media."

"Right. Just what I was thinking." I realized I had to watch what I said.

What I was also thinking was that the Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies were sort of like a cross between the Gestapo and the Boy Scouts-the iron fist in the velvet glove and all that. We won't speculate meant, Shut up. Not wanting to wind up in protective custody for a year, or maybe worse, I said, with real sincerity, "I'll do whatever I have to do to bring this guy to justice. Just keep me on the case."

Neither of my teammates replied, though they could have reminded me that I wanted out not too long ago.

Ted Nash, Super-Spy, gave Officer Simpson an address a block away from Federal Plaza. I mean, jeez, the guy's a cop, and even if he was stupid, he could figure out that we were going either to 26 Federal Plaza, or 290 Broadway, the new Fed building across the street from Fed Plaza. In fact, Simpson said, "You want to walk to Federal Plaza?"

I laughed.

Nash said, "Just pull over here."

Officer Simpson pulled over on Chambers Street near the infamous Tweed Courthouse, and we all got out. I thanked him for driving us, and he reminded me, "I have damage to the front of the patrol car."

"Charge it to the Feds," I said. "They're collecting a trillion dollars today."

We began walking up lower Broadway. It was dusk now, but it's always dusk down here in the skyscraper caverns of lower Manhattan. This was not a residential or shopping district, it was a government district, so there weren't many people around on a Saturday, and the streets were relatively quiet.

As we walked, I said to Mr. Nash, "I have this sort of impression that maybe you guys knew we'd have a problem today."

He didn't reply right away, then said, "Today is April fifteen."

"Right. I got my tax return in yesterday. I'm clean."

"Muslim extremists attach a lot of significance to anniversary dates. We have a lot of watch dates on our calendar."

"Yeah? What's today?"

"Today," said Ted Nash, "is the anniversary date of when we bombed Libya in nineteen eighty-six."

"No kidding?" I asked Kate, "Did you know that?"

"Yes, but I attached little significance to it, to be honest with you."

Nash added, "We've never had an incident on this date before, but Moammar Gadhafi makes an anti-American speech every year on this date. In fact, he made one earlier today." mulled this over awhile, trying to decide if I'd have acted any differently if I'd known this. I mean, this kind of stuff was not in my clue bag, but if it was, I might have at least put it into my paranoia pocket. I love being a mushroom, as you can imagine-kept in the dark and fed a lot of shit-and I asked my teammates, "Did you forget to tell me?"

Nash replied, "It didn't seem terribly important. I mean, important that you know."

"I see," which means, "Fuck you," of course. But I was learning to talk the talk. I asked, "How did Khalil know he'd be transported today?"

Nash replied, "Well, he didn't know for sure. But our Paris Embassy can't or won't hold a man like this for more than twenty-four hours. That much he probably knew. And if we had held him in Paris longer, nothing would have been much different, except for the missed symbolic date."

"Okay, but you played his game and transported him on the fifteenth of April."

"That's right," answered Mr. Nash. "We played his game, wanting to arrest him here on the fifteenth."

"I think you're going to miss the date."

He didn't reply to this, but informed me, "We took extraordinary security precautions in Paris, at the airport, and on the aircraft. In fact, there were also two Federal Air Marshals on board, undercover."

"Good. Then nothing could go wrong."

He ignored my sarcasm, and said, "There is a Hebrew expression, shared by the Arabs, that says, 'Man plans, God laughs.'"

"Good one."

We reached the twenty-eight-story skyscraper, called 26 Federal Plaza, and Nash said to me, "Kate and I will do the talking. Speak only if spoken to."

"Can I contradict you?"

"You'll have no reason to," he said. "This is the one place where only the truth is spoken."

So, with that bit of Orwellian information in my head, we entered the great Ministry of Truth and Justice.

April 15, I reflected, now sucked for two reasons.